Product-carrying basket

ABSTRACT

A product-carrying basket having a construction primarily of sheet metal corner members with angularly-related planar sections assembled to a plurality of perimeter frame wires, with the sheet metal corner members extending for the full height of the basket to provide added strength and constructed to form an integral part of the basket, with welding of a plurality of the perimeter frame wires to a corner member being accomplished as an initial stage in assembly. The product-carrying basket has structure associated with at least one of the corner members to permanently associate a name with the basket, with the name being added after manufacture by a mechanically-locked name-plate recessed to avoid exposure to wear.

United States Patent 11 1 Carlson 1451 2 Dec. 4, 1973 [5 PRODUCT-CARRYING BASKET 1,560,092 11 1925 Odquist 40/306 [75] Inventor: Arthur B. Carlson, Mendota, lll.

Primary Examiner-George E. Lowrance 1 Asslgnee? Como -9 Mendota, 11L Attorney--Hofgren, Wegner, Allen, Stellman & 22 Filed: Mar. 5, 1971 Mccord [21] Appl. N0.: 121,270 [57] ABSTRACT A product-carrying basket having a construction pri- [52] US. Cl 2211/12 40/306, 40/325, marily of Sheet metal comer members with angu|ar|y 206/1316 220/97 A related planar sections assembled to a plurality of pe- [51] Int. Cl. B6511 7/20, G09f 3/18 rimeter frame wires, with the sheet metal comer [58] Field Of Search 220/19, 97 A; bets extending for the l height f the basket to 206/DIG' 29; 40/306 325 vide added strength and constructed to form an intev gral part of the basket, with welding of a plurality of [56] References cue! the perimeter frame wires to a comer member being UNITED STATES PATENTS accomplished as an initial stage in assembly. The pro- 1,822,213 8/1931 Hamilton .1 40/325 ying basket has Structure associated with at 3,181,723 4/1965 Schray..... 220/19 least one of the corner members to permanently asso- 2,856,093 10/1958 220/19 ciate a name with the basket, with the name being 2,184,039 12/1939 40/307 added after manufacture by a mechanically-locked 1,909,257 5/ 19.33 Y 40/328 name-plate recessed to avoid exposure to wear. 2,981,440 4/1961 Lllja...... 220/19 X 2,952,382 9/1960 Rehrig 220/19 1 Claim, 3 Drawing Figures FE 5 J 1' 0 ,l H 1 N 1 s 2 1 r 1 -26 5 1 D 3 I A 1. I

i e 7f 1 2 712 I I i I PATENIEDUEC 4 I975 [III/lull] IIIIII/ This invention pertains to baskets and, more particularly, to baskets of wire construction for carrying products, such as milk and eggs, with new and improved construction providing for less cost in manufacture, greater strength and permitting storage in inventory for supplying customer orders.

Typical of the prior art is Bruce US. Pat. No. 2,856,093, owned by the assignee of this application. Such prior constructions have not had basket corners providing maximum strength, association of a comer member with the perimeter frame wires as an initial step in assembly and provision for supplying a customers name, as desired, to the basket after manufacture of the basket. In the past, a customers name has been stamped into the sheet metal corner member, which requires that baskets for supplying the customers order be manufactured after the comer members have been stamped with the desired name. Alternatively to this, attempts to add a name to a basket after manufacture have not been satisfactory because of the lack of permanency of the nameplate. If such nameplate is glued to a painted comer, the glue tends to dissolve the paint and makes an inadequate bond. Other alternatives have enabled easy removal of the nameplate. When baskets are on loan to stores or the like, as commonly occurs in the use of the baskets, it is possible to lose the identification indicating the ownership of the basket, which increases the possibility of theft. Further, the space available for a name stamped into the metal of a corner member often requires very small letters, which are not easily read.

All of the foregoing problems have been solved by my invention wherein the corner members are constructed and associated with the perimeter frame, wires of the basket to provide maximum strength and wherein a nameplate can be mechanically locked to the basket after manufacture of the basket.

SUMMARY 7 An object of this invention is to provide a new and improved product-carrying basket which has maximum strength, is easy to manufacture, and has structure for locking a nameplate to the basket after manufacture.

Another object of the invention is to provide a basket for carrying products and having sheet metal comer members associated with perimeter frame wires, with each of the comer members having angularly-related planar portions and projections to weld to contacting parts of the perimeter frame wires and with the comers extending substantially the entire height of the basket. Each planar portion has an end bent around the uppermostperimeter frame wire to avoid protrusions which could rip containers, such as egg or milk cartons, which are carried by the basket. I

Still another object of the invention is to provide a basket for carrying products and having provision for mechanically-locking a nameplate to the basket after basket'manufacture, including a vertically-extending recess located at a corner of the basket and having a throat of a width less than the width of a nameplate wherein a relatively rigid nameplate can be flexed and An additional object of the invention is to provide a basket, as defined in the preceding paragraph, wherein said recess is formed in a planar portion of a sheet metal comer member for the basket and with the recess having a base and sides extending between the base and the planar portion of the corner member and with the throat defined by outwardly protruding sections of said sides, said outwardly-protruding sections of the sides being spaced from the base of the recess a distance approximately equal to the distance of the nameplate.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the basket embodying the invention;

FIG. 2 is a vertical fragmentary section, on an enlarged scale, of a comer of the basket; and

FIG. 3 is a plan section on a further enlarged scale, taken generally along the line 33 in FIG. 2.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT of rectangularly-shaped perimeter frame wires, includ- 1 ing a top wire 20 and a bottom wire 21, with there being intermediate perimeter frame wires 22, 23 and 24. All of the perimeter frame wires 20-24 are welded at two locations to each of the four basket corner members.

Referring particularly to corner member 10, shown in FIGS. 1-3, there are a pair of intermediate panel parts 25 and 26 having semicircular indentations 27 and 28, respectively, to receive a length of the intermediate frame wire 23 and with projections 29 to provide good welding contact with the perimeter frame wire 23.

A lower, outwardly offset part 30 of the comer member 10 has vertically-extending projections 31 and 32 in the panels 16 and 17 providing good welding contact with the bottom wire 21. The projections 33 and 34 provide good welding contact with the intermediate perimeter frame wire 24. The upper ends of the intermediate panel parts 25 and 26 are provided with semicircular recesses 35 and 36 which receive a length of the intermediate perimeter frame wire 22 and which have indentations 37 to provide good welding contact.

Each of the comer members extends for substantially the full height of the basket and the upper ends of each of the panels 16 and 17 are formed with a bendable end 40 and 41, respectively, having welding projections 42. Withthis construction, the bendable ends can be bent aroundthe top wire 20, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, to avoid any sharp edges.

With the structure of the corner members, it will be seen that ten welding points to five perimeter frame wires are provided at each comer of the basket. With this construction, the corner member and the perimeter frame wires can be assembled and all the welds to one comer member made simultaneously, to have the corner member function as an integrating element for the basket wires during assembly.

The vertically-extending projections 31 and 32 extend all the way to the lower end of the comer member 10. This provides manufacturing flexibility in providing baskets of different height. The height of the basket is determined by the heights of the comer members and these members are made from sheet metal coil or strip stock material of a width to provide the desired height. The corner member is then formed in a die, which is made wide enough for the tallest comer member anticipated. The vertically-extending projections 31 and 32, because of their extension to the bottom of the comer member, will always coact with the bottom wire 21, regardless of the final basket height.

Additionally, the basket has a plurality of verticallyextending, generally hairpin-shaped side wires 50, each of which has a loop 51 at the upper end which is bent outwardly to extend between the top perimeter frame wire and the intermediate perimeter frame wire 22, with the offset between these two wires being shown particularly in FIG. 2. The side wires 50 are welded to the perimeter frame wires.

The bottom of the basket is provided by a grid structure including a generally rectangular stacking ring 55 which mounts a plurality of spaced-apart bottom members 56. A pair of attaching wires 57 and 58 span and are secured to the stacking ring and at their ends are welded to the underside of the bottom perimeter frame wire 21 and have outwardly-extending loops 59 which weld to the bottom perimeter frame wire 21.

The full height comer members with the angularlyrelated panels provide substantial strength for the basket to permit vertical stacking of a plurality of baskets without damage and with there being slight nesting of one basket within another by the stacking ring 55 of one basket fitting within the top perimeter frame wire 20 of the basket disposed therebeneath.

A basket has provision for attachment of a nameplate after manufacture. Thus baskets can be built and stored and, upon receipt of an order, a nameplate is attached prior to shipment.

Each of the angularly-related panels 16 and 17 of a comer member is provided with means for mechanically-locking a nameplate to the basket. Referring particularly to the panel 17, a vertically-extending recess, indicated generally at 60, is formed in the intermediate panel part 26 and is made by a forming operation wherein a portion of the panel is offset inwardly to provide a base 61 for the recess and a pair of sides 62 and 63 which connect the base to the planar portion of the panel. The sides 62 and 63 have outwardly protruding sections 64 and 65, respectively, defining retention members and with surfaces which form a throat for the recess therebetween extending along the length thereof. A nameplate 70, formed of a suitable material, examples of which are high impact polystyrene or polyethylene, and which can carry hot stamped indicia, is fitted in the recess and extends along the length thereof as shown in FIG. 2. This nameplate has a width greater than the width of the throat and, although the nameplate is fairly rigid, it has sufficient flexibility whereby it may be firmly pressed and flexed into the recess and lock behind the protruding sections 64 and 65. The dimensions of the nameplate 70 and the recess are related whereby the depth of the recess beyond the protruding sections 64 and 65 as well as the width of the recess are substantially equal to the thickness and width of the nameplate to relatively snugly receive the nameplate. Once inserted, the nameplate is mechanically locked to the corner member and, as shown in FIG. 3, indicia 71 on the nameplate are still set back from the front face of the panel 17 of the comer member whereby the indicia are not exposed to wear.

This shaping of the corner member to provide the nameplate-receiving recess also provides some additional strength for the basket and enables the use of more than one nameplate per basket, since a total of eight nameplate-receiving recesses are provided in the basket with four comers.

Whether or not a nameplate is in each recess does not affect the structural integrity nor appearance of the comer member. The visibility provided by the hot stamped nameplate and long life characteristics thereof provide for improved basket identification as compared to stamping a name in the sheet metal used in forming the basket comers. Such a previous procedure required large letters in order to be visible, which then limited the number of letters that could be stamped. Further, the baskets could not be manufactured until the corner members had been stamped with the name and it was not possible to have an inventory of baskets which could be drawn upon for filling orders of many different customers.

7 The protruding sections 64 and 65 which define the throat for the recess are shown as extending continuously of the recess. However, it is within the scope of the invention to provide the throat by vertically-spaced protrusions at each side of the recess which would effectively define retention members sufficient to lock the nameplate in position.

I claim:

1. A basket for carrying products and including:

a plurality of vertically oriented sheet metal corner members;

means extending between said comer members and defining a basket for receipt of products;

at least one of said comer elements including means for applying identifying indicia to the basket while strengthening the corner member and comprising a vertically elongated recess stamped in the corner member, the recess having a planar base peripherally surrounded by a continuous wall defined by opposed elongated side walls and interconnecting, opposed end walls, each of said side walls being provided with outwardly protruding sections directed toward the other side wall and located on said side walls remote from said base to define nameplate retention means;

an elongated name plate of rigid but slightly flexible material received in said recess in abutment with said base, said name plate having a width substantially equal to the width of said recess and greater than the distance between said outwardly protruding sections,

a length substantially equal to the distance between said end walls,

a periphery having a shape substantially the same as the shape of said continuous wall so that the periphery of the nameplate continuously abuts said continuous wall, and

a thickness approximately equal to the distance between said outwardly protruding sections and said base,

said nameplate being easily affixed to said basket by to minimize wear to the nameplate and indicia flexing the same to pass said outwardly protruding thereon. and

sections to be received in said recess and locked in place by said outwardly protruding sections, whereby said nameplate is substantially permanently 5 thereby Provldmg a Strong affixed to said comer memberand recessed therein whereby said recess strengthens said corner member 

1. A basket for carrying products and including: a plurality of vertically oriented sheet metal corner members; means extending between said corner members and defining a basket for receipt of products; at least one of said corner elements including means for applying identifying indicia to the basket while strengthening the corner member and comprising a vertically elongated recess stamped in the corner member, the recess having a planar base peripherally surrounded by a continuous wall defined by opposed elongated side walls and interconnecting, opposed end walls, each of said side walls being provided with outwardly protruding sections directed toward the other side wall and located on said side walls remote from said base to define nameplate retention means; an elongated name plate of rigid but slightly flexible material received in said recess in abutment with said base, said name plate having a width substantially equal to the width of said recess and greater than the distance between said outwardly protruding sections, a length substantially equal to the distance between said end walls, a periphery having a shape substantially the same as the shape of said continuous wall so that the periphery of the nameplate continuously abuts said continuous wall, and a thickness approximately equal to the distance between said outwardly protruding sections and said base, said nameplate being easily affixed to said basket by flexing the same to pass said outwardly protruding sections to be received in said recess and locked in place by said outwardly protruding sections, whereby said nameplate is substantially permanently affixed to said corner member and recessed therein to minimize wear to the nameplate and indicia thereon, and whereby said recess strengthens said corner member thereby providing a strong basket. 